Tale of an Unsung Hero
by SerenLyall
Summary: Sometimes even legends need to get their butts saved.


**Disclaimer:** Stargate SG-1 nor any of the characters belong to me. They belong to all respective owners. I am merely borrowing the characters, putting them into my own stories and ideas, and am going to put them back. Haffton, Griffs, Ramules, Jolden, and Dammon are mine though :)

**Rating:** K+ (what a shock for me...). Rated K+ for some Sci-fi action, language, and slightly disturbing images.

**Category:** Adventure/Friendship

**Summary:** Sometimes even legends need to get their butts saved.

**Timeframe: **Season 7 sometime, after episode 3

**A/N:** Well, I was _planning_ on going straight back to Love of a Father to begin work on chapter 8 when, suddenly, this idea popped into my head. Deciding that it would likely only take about an hour to completely finish, I went ahead and wrote it out (it took about 30-ish minutes to write, and then probably another 10-15 to edit). I was _going_ to upload it last night, but I fell asleep (oops...).

Anyway, this is from the viewpoint of an Airman by the name of Jeremiah Haffton. Read, review, but most importantly, enjoy :)

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Tale of an Unsung Hero

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I was just a regular SF stationed under Cheyenne Mountain, working at the secret military organization known as the SGC. True, everyone who worked there wasn't exactly normal, but compared to most that were stationed there, I was just your Average Joe.

I had a gun and a set of dog tags, a small apartment, a girlfriend, and a Labrador Retriever. I liked football and hated pink, preferring my BDUs to civvies. I was just your average SF that worked with an ancient piece of alien technology that enabled nearly instantaneous transport to other planets.

You might ask what I do? I guard the Stargate, or the Portal as my buddies and I call it. Yes, every time the Gate activates, scheduled or unscheduled, I'm one of the ones that races through the blast doors, pointing my P90 at the shimmering event horizon.

Basically, my life was boring as hell.

I envied those on the SG teams, who were always going on grand adventures, getting into firefights, meeting new races of aliens and our long lost cousins a hundred times removed, getting to fight and defeat those lame, egotistical, arrogant asses called the Goa'uld. But most of all, I envied their periods of downtime, in which they were allowed to go on vacation, were allowed time to recover from particularly trying and difficult missions.

Me? I was on base six days a week from six in the morning till nine at night.

There was one team, however, that I held no feelings of jealousy for whatsoever: SG-1. Why? Just go look at their mission reports and you'll see why; they get all the _really_ traumatic experiences, like constantly being taken prisoner and tortured, getting their consciousnesses downloaded into computers, getting cloned into machines…or just full out cloned into a thirteen year old version of yourself…you get the idea.

Not to say I didn't respect the four members of the planet's flagship team: Colonel Jack O'Neill with his cynical sense of humor, Major Samantha Carter for her beauty as well as brains, Dr. Daniel Jackson for his compassionate personality and whimsical, dazed smile, and Teal'c, the ever stoic and heroic Jaffa.

I suppose, deep down inside of me, I knew that I wasn't even on the same _continent_ as the members of SG-1, let alone league with any of them.

But even the legendary SG-1 aren't all powerful or immortal, and sometimes even the heroes of Earth need to be saved.

"_Unscheduled Offworld Activation_."

I jumped up from the room where we all sit in between Offworld Gate Activations, dropping my hand of cards and grabbing my gun from where it was sitting on the table. I followed Griffs out the door, sprinting down the concrete passageways, base personnel dodging out of our ways as we pounded down the hallway.

The blast doors slid open and we piled into the Gate Room, taking up the positions that we could drop into even in our sleep. I clicked the safety off of my P90, and raised the muzzle, pointing it at the spiraled shape of the closed iris.

"_Receiving IDC_," came Walter Harriman's voice over the mic. "_It's SG-1 and they're coming in hot_."

"What a surprise there," snickered Jolden. I smiled and I heard a number of chuckles coming from my other buddies.

With a metallic scrape, the iris opened, settling into the Gate with its customary _thunk_. Behind it, the event horizon shimmered dull blue. All of us settled down deeper into our crouches, preparing for the whizzing fire of Goa'uld staff blasts.

To our surprise, none came.

The event horizon suddenly flashed bright, poisonous orange, the color splashing to fill the entire Portal. Just as suddenly as it had come, the color was gone, and something spherical and green dotted with orange burst through the Portal, hitting the ramp.

The ball burst upon impact, spraying globules of foul smelling liquid all throughout the Gate Room. It hissed and sizzled wherever it touched, steam rising from the concrete as the acid ate through the walls, before fizzling away a few seconds later.

"Well this was not what I was expecting," Ramules muttered, shifting uneasily.

"Hold position, we don't know what's coming through next!" Dammons ordered. We all shifted restlessly, but obeyed his command, fingering our weapons and our gazes flickering from the Portal to the ramp where the metal had been thoroughly eaten away in a large hole.

The event horizon flashed the same poignant orange again, and two more globs of the acid containers burst out, one of the exploding and adding its own nastiness to the mess, the other merely rolling down the ramp and falling through the hole in the metal.

It merely fizzled away, crumbling anticlimactically into a dozen pieces of hardened shell.

The Portal _glooped_, and Teal'c came through, one arm under Daniel's arms, holding him upright while the archaeologist, whose face was screwed up with agony, was clutching his left leg with his left hand, his right arm looped over Teal'c's shoulders.

"_Medical team to the Gate Room_."

"Honestly, they should always just order a medical team to the Gate Room every time SG-1 steps through the gate." This time it was Griffs that made the comment, appreciative smirks and glances being thrown his way, some of the tenseness that had been crackling through the air dissipating with his snide remark.

Teal'c was helping Daniel hop off of the ramp by this time, skirting the large hole in the metal grate.

The sound of two more bodies exiting the Gate brought all of our attentions back front. Colonel O'Neill was gently lying Major Carter down onto the ramp, who had both her hands pressed to her side. They didn't fully cover the wound though, and it glared red, blue, and green swirled with black, bubbling and oozing like a terrible burn.

Colonel O'Neill stood, holding his hand carefully against his chest as he did, turning away from the Portal and towards the Control Room. "Close the iris!" he yelled, just as the event horizon flashed bright orange once again.

It was as if time itself froze, then I found myself lunging forward, my booted feet hitting the ruined ramp with sharp clangs. I jumped over the hole, grabbing the Colonel's vest and pushed him down the ramp and away from the Stargate.

"Haffton, get down!" someone bellowed at me.

I turned just in time to see the ball of acid leaving the Portal and flying straight towards me. I dropped to the ground, but I wasn't quite fast enough.

The small globe hit my shoulder, bursting and spraying me with a burning, stinging, and fiery liquid. I yelled, falling to the ground as the Gate deactivated, the Gate Room appearing to suddenly be darkened.

Colonel O'Neill picked himself up and dropped down beside me, still favoring his left hand which also seemed to have been injured.

"Airman?" the colonel asked. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes sir," I croaked out, my entire side feeling as if was on fire.

"Good, Doc Fraiser and a med team are on their way. Hold on."

"Yes sir," I croaked out again, my mind locking down.

_Colonel O'Neill is talking to me,_ was all I could think. _Wow, this is awesome._

The next thing I could remember clearly was being lifted onto a gurney and wheeled out of the Gate Room, the awed looks on my buddies' faces worth every bit of pain and anguish I was going through.

Then I remembered waking up in the infirmary, feeling distinctly loopy and numbed. I cracked my eyes open and peered around, taking in my surroundings.

The two beds beside me were occupied, Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c sitting in chairs between the two. From the bed directly next to me I could hear Daniel's voice coming from, his tone annoyed as he argued with the colonel. Beyond him, in the next bed, I could just make out the blonde of Major Carter's hair as she grinned at the friendly banter between two of her best friends. She glanced at Teal'c, rolling her eyes slightly, and he leaned in to whisper to O'Neill for her.

A sudden pang of jealousy flashed through me and, for the first time, I wished that I could be on SG-1, with the same bonds of friendship and loyalty, of brother-hood in arms that can only come from what they've gone through together.

Colonel O'Neill stood with an exasperated sigh.

"You know what, Daniel? You're insufferable without coffee. I'm off to collect a cup to smuggle in." And with that, the infamous man turned and strode out the door.

However, he paused for a second at the foot of my bed, seeing that I was awake.

"I think I owe you some thanks," he said with a grin, moving the arm that was in a sling restlessly. "I'll buy you a beer next day you have off, deal?"

"Yessir," I said, grinning. The colonel nodded, then exited.

Griffs, Ramules, and Jolden peered in through the door, bounding into the room when they saw me glance their way.

"You're awake," Ramules said, grinning. "We woulda been here earlier except we just got on lunch break. Dammon's going to grab us our lunch and is gonna meet us in here."

"You're one lucky bastard," Griffs said, butting in. "If I had been any closer, I woulda been the one that grabbed the Colonel."

"Riiiggght," I smirked.

Jolden punched Griffs in the shoulder.

"Naw you wouldn't have. You're too much of a chicken."

I smiled at my buddies as their banter continued. And I suddenly decided that I had all that I needed, right here.


End file.
